The term "Reichstag" (German
pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪçstaːk](listen))
is a compound of GermanReich ("Empire") and
Tag ("assembly"; does not mean "day" here, but is derived
from the verb tagen "to assemble" (which in turn does mean
to gather on an appointed day). The Latin term, a direct translation, was curia
imperialis. (Still today, the parliaments on the various
federal levels in Germany are called Bundestag, Landtag etc., and the parliament in Sweden is called Riksdag.)

Contents

The Reichstag
in the Holy Roman Empire

During the period of the Holy Roman Empire which lasted
formally until 1806, the Reichstag was never a parliament
in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various
estates of which the Empire was composed. More precisely, it
was the convention of the Reichsstände ("imperial estates"),
legal entities that, according to feudal law, had no
authority above them besides the Emperor himself (see Holy Roman
Empire for details).

The precise role and function of the Reichstag changed
over the centuries, as did the Empire itself, in that the estates
and separate territories gained more and more control of their own
affairs at the expense of imperial power. Initially, there was
neither a fixed time nor location for the Reichstag. It
started as a convention of the dukes of the old Germanic tribes that formed the Frankish kingdom when important decisions
had to be made, and was probably based on the old Germanic law
whereby each leader relied on the support of his leading men. For
example, already under Charlemagne (Charlemagne), the Reichstag of Aachen in 802/803 officially
determined the laws of the Saxons and other tribes. The Reichstag of 919 in
Fritzlar elected the first
king of the Germans who was a Saxon, Henry the Fowler, thus overcoming the
longstanding rivalry between Franks and Saxons and laying the
foundation for the German Empire. In 1158, the Diet of
Roncaglia finalized four laws that would significantly alter
the (never formally written) constitution of the Empire, marking the
beginning of the steady decline of the central power in favour of
the local dukes. In 1356, the Golden Bull cemented the concept of
Landesherrschaft ("territorial rule"), the largely
independent rule of the dukes over their respective territories,
and also limited the number of electors to seven: the Duke of
Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the King of Bohemia, the
Elector Palatine (Palsgrave) and the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier
and Cologne. The Pope was from this point officially excluded from
the electoral process.

However, until the late 15th century, the Reichstag was
not actually formalized as an institution. Instead, the dukes and
other princes would irregularly convene at the court of the
Emperor; these assemblies were usually referred to as
Hoftage (from German Hof "court"). Only beginning
in 1489 was the Reichstag called as such, and was formally
divided into several collegia ("colleges"). Initially, the
two colleges were that of the Kurfürsten ("prince-electors") and
that of the other dukes and princes. Later, the imperial cities, that is, cities that were
reichsunmittelbar and were oligarchic
republics independent of a local ruler that were subject only to
the Emperor himself, managed to be accepted as a third party.

Several attempts to reform the Empire and end its slow
disintegration, notably starting with the Reichstag in
1495, did not have much effect. In contrast, this process was only
hastened with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which
formally bound the Emperor to accept all decisions made by the
Reichstag, in effect depriving him of his few remaining
powers. From then to its end in 1806, the Reich was not
much more than a collection of largely independent states.

The Reichstag
as the German Parliament

After the collapse of the Empire in 1806, the term was
subsequently used for the Parliament of the 1849 Frankfurt constitution draft that never
came into effect, the Parliament of the North German Confederation
from 1867-1871 and finally that of the 1871 German Empire. In
the latter two cases, it was a parliament elected by all males who
had attained the age of 25. This made the Reichstag the most
democratic parliament in Europe.

In the 1919 Weimar Republic, the Reichskanzler (chancellor, head of
government) was responsible to the Reichstag, which
was directly elected by the people. From 1930 on, however, the
Reichstag was practically circumvented with the use of the
extensive powers that were granted to the president under the Emergency
Decree in Article 48 of the constitution. After Adolf Hitler was
appointed Reichskanzler on January 30, 1933 the process of
Gleichschaltung ("marching in
step", "synchronization") commenced with the Reichstag Fire Decree(Reichstagsbrandverordnung) and the Enabling
Act(Ermächtigungsgesetz), in which the
Reichstag formally dispensed from itself exclusive
responsibility for the exercise of the legislative power. From then
on it only functioned as a body of ratification by acclamation, for
the action(s); legislative; minsterial; and executive, of the
dictatorship. Even for this almost purely ceremonial role, the
Third Reich, Reichstag held its last session on April 26, 1942.

The Reichstag building in Berlin was constructed as the
seat of the Reichstag in the German Empire in 1894 and,
after a major reconstruction, has been the seat of today's German
parliament, the Bundestag, since 1999. After the
building was gutted in the Reichstag fire of 1933, the Nazi
Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House.

Collection of
Reichstag records

After the 1871 formation of the German Empire the Historical Commission
of the Bavarian
Academy of Sciences started to collect imperial records
(Reichsakten) and imperial diet records
(Reichstagsakten). In 1893 the commission published the
first volume. At present the years 1524 – 1527 and years up to 1544
are being collected and researched. A volume dealing with the 1532
Reichstag in Regensburg, including the peace negotiations with the
Protestants in Schweinfurt and Nuremberg, by Rosemarie Aulinger of Vienna was published in 1992. A
list of the records of several European countries can be found here.